


We Don't Talk About It

by laudanum_and_wine



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Honesty, Matt's high IQ is why we can't have nice things, Romance, becasue we can't have nice things, just a teeny tiny toch of angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-12
Updated: 2015-11-12
Packaged: 2018-05-01 06:09:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5195075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laudanum_and_wine/pseuds/laudanum_and_wine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It hits Karen suddenly, an image jumping out of an impressionist painting. She hadn't even been looking for the meaning of it all. But now here she was, and she felt good, figuring it out. She felt good and she felt confidant, and she was going to do all the things she'd been wanting to do for so long. But it felt a little bit like hubris too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We Don't Talk About It

When she realized, it didn't even register consciously. All she felt was the wave of adrenaline and panic tightening in her ribs. Her brain only managed to think a few words, “Oh my god, I knew, I know, did I always know?” 

Karen simply set the coffee she'd been sipping down on the table in front of her, breathing evenly by sheer willpower alone. Her mind was a mess of unintelligible thoughts, but her body simply carried on, aware that any other behavior would embarrass her desperately. This was fine, it would be fine, she could simply pretend it meant absolutely nothing and had no impact. Perhaps she'd gone insane, that was an almost comforting thought. Perhaps it was all in her head. 

Across the foyer Matt gently shut the door behind him with one hand, delicately gripping his cane upright. She smoothed the papers before her, seeing Matt seemingly totally unaffected helped to calm her. She assured herself that he had no idea she was panicking, no idea she had flushed with fear. He couldn't see her, and she hadn't spoken. For goodness sake, he didn't even know she was in the office. 

“Matt, good morning,” she stood up, focusing on not spilling the coffee. “Foggy just ran downstairs for some bagels, he was here before me even. I would say he slept here, but he's just too perky for that.” 

“On the other hand it's possible he hasn't slept yet and is simply cheerfully slipping away from sanity.” Matt's smile was crooked and comforting, and another wave of much more manageable panic rose in Karen. This feeling was easy, this feeling she had known for months, it was simple infatuation. Matt was stunning and, oh, she had fallen for him. Shut up, she thought sternly at her papers, just get out of this situation so you can panic in private. 

By the time she looked up again he had carefully leaned his cane in the corner by the door and was moving towards his office, “Are those reference books I asked for in here?”

“Yeah, center of you desk. Just tell me if you need anything.” 

Matt's door gently clicked shut and Karen let out a long sigh, slumping in her chair slightly. She stared balefully at the black coffee before her, feeling the new spatial awareness of how her stomach seemed plastered directly to her rib cage. No more caffeine this morning.

~~

The second time she saw him, he'd just appeared: she had looked over, down the length of the alley, and there he was. Things had moved so fast the first time they met, in the rain, the yelling and fighting. Maybe there hadn't been much yelling, but her whole memory of the attack in her apartment felt loud, like a freight train ran through the room.

The second time had been totally different. It had been silent, a cold quiet night, and the frost had glittered up from the pavement. Pale plumes of breath rose in the air and she knew, suddenly, that it was intentional. That she could see his breath because he knew her, recognized her from last time. He had appeared like a shadow thrown up by headlights now, but with no intent to frighten. 

She had seen the idiot thug following her for three blocks, all swagger and shaved head. She had stepped into the alley to buy herself time to get out her pepper spray, teach this moron a lesson about women who were properly prepared for some jerks aggression. But as she turned around to get a good aim at his face the sound of a soft crunch broke the silence, and as she looked at where the thug ought to be all she could find was a slumped body. And a few feet away, the man in the black mask blocking her path, immobile.

The silence went on for several moments, both of them clouding the air with frosty breaths. Finally she broke it, her footsteps echoing as she approached the figure. She jangled her keys, rattling the pepper-spray, “I had it covered.” 

“I'm actually very sure you did. But I wouldn't want you to waste your pepper-spray.” 

“Mmm,” she managed to saunter past the strange man without feeling too terribly self conscious. “Sneaking up on women in the dark. It's a good thing we've met before, or I'd spray you too.” 

She heard laughter from behind her, but despite her smile she resisted turning around. 

~~

So after the lack of caffeinated all day, she somehow thought drinking alcohol would be a good choice. Who's idea had that been? Hers? Whoever it had been, Josie had told them she was closing early and it wasn't a total surprise seeing as it was a Thursday. It did, however, seem to happen only moments after they began to drink. That could have been in part due to the trio buying a bottle of tequila to share immediately upon entering the bar. The tequila was, indeed, gone and so Karen had to assume they had been sitting there complaining about that damn slum-lord Tully and his little legal loopholes for some time. 

Somewhere in the back of her skull, before drinking but after a light lunch she'd only managed to pick at, Karen had discovered the problem with her day. The problem, as she saw it, started the moment she'd acted normal around Matt. She had a lot of secrets, and a lot of them weren't hers to tell. But somehow this, knowing this and not saying anything. It just felt wrong. And it was one of the few things she could do something about. So now half her attention was held by her own thoughts chasing around her skull, even as the bar's light flipped off. 

“We should go down the street to that dance club. That is what we should do,” Foggy was slipping off his bar-stool gracefully and shrugging on his jacket. 

“I don't know guys, shouldn't one of us go home and be responsible?”   
“Oh and I suppose that should be you Matt, so you can be sober and make loud noises at us in the morning? Be a general nuisance to us poor hungover souls? No no no,” By this point Foggy had actually managed to open the front door with one hand while Karen gently pulled the empty tequila bottle from his other. “We will go out, and we will dance! With beautiful women. Not that you're not beautiful Karen, you will be among the beautiful women. With which we dance. I am going to keep talking and making an idiot of myself, but down the street. Who will come with me?” 

As Foggy meandered down the street, Matt and Karen walked a few paces behind, listening to his near constant monologue about how they would heroically defeat Tully in a battle of wits and all the beautiful women at the next bar would buy them drinks for it. 

“He's not actually as drunk as he's acting, you know.” Matt smiled ahead at the dramatically gesticulating figure. 

“He seems like he needed a night out. I think he knows that we do too.” 

“I don't know Karen, are you unduly stressed?” 

She thought for a beat then laughed audibly, trying to dismiss the comment without having to say anything , anything at all if she could avoid it. 

“We haven't had a chance to talk lately.” 

“There's not much for me to talk about these days Matt. You see me all day, everything I've been up to you know about. Though, oh, my wall is finally fixed. You know, the dent in the sheet-rock?” She watched Matt as she walked forward, willing him to react. 

“That's good.” 

Ahead of them Foggy opened the door of the new bar letting a soft wave of music roll into the street. Matt seemed to listen for a moment at the door without pausing his steps, letting Foggy guide him into the dark bar. 

~~

The third time she saw the man in the mask, the air had already warmed, the night had been loud with a city stretching it's long limbs after winters grip. Somewhere, Karen knew, there were girls in shorts and boys in tank-tops, running around in the near-summer evening and laughing into the short dark night. 

When she saw him she knew again that it was something allowed. That she was only here with him because he was not actively avoiding her. 

She had heard the sirens, and seen the glow light the sky as she walked out to the grocery store. Somewhere there was a fire. Not near enough to fear, but in her neighborhood. She had stepped lightly to the side when running crowds of would-be-onlookers chattered past. She had wondered about the masked hero, knowing he shouldn't be there. He wasn't a fire-fighter, so she gently let down her own expectations and hopes of seeing him again, and simply hoped that the fire was simple and was contained. 

But like any wraith or phantom he appeared only when least expected, and sure enough there he was. Out of the corner of her eye she saw him sitting under a fire escape. He was smudged with ash and was panting. She couldn't see his breaths in the air, but they felt more tangible, he was more real and solid every time they met. 

She turned without pause, walking to within feet of the seated man before setting her groceries down. From close up she could see the blisters bubbling up on his forearms and hands, the red line of seared smooth skin peeking through singed cotton shirt. 

“Here,” she reached into one of the bags pulling out a bottle of tonic water. “Drink this.” The hunched form didn't move, so she gently tapped his arm with the bottle, “Drink or be dehydrated in addition to burned. Drink, it's tonic water but at least it's water.” 

The man slowly creaked into motion, taking the bottle and draining half in a few good gulps. She watched his hands and lips move, from just a few feet above, trying to will him stronger. Trying to remember the dashing, if battered, figure he cut the first time they met. That view had simply faded from her eyes over time, and finally she saw that this had to be a man. A real human man. Who had a home, maybe pets, kids. Hopefully not kids, for everyone’s sake. 

She reached down one last time, touching his knee gently where no burns peeked through, “I don't know what happened today, but we always seem to owe you thanks.” 

She had awkwardly picked up her groceries again and walked away without looking back. 

 

~~~

Karen quietly excused herself as Matt and Foggy found a booth to sit at. In the ladies room she stared at her reflection, hoping for a revelation. Nothing came. Her reflection stared back, seeming strange and warped by the alcohol in her system. The reflection had no insights to offer her. 

One her way back she quietly asked the bartender for change for a ten, breaking the whole bill into quarters. She quickly dropped them into the electric jukebox, paying a little extra to move her songs ahead in the list. She filled the queue with gentle vocalists, solemn bluegrass, and indie one-man-bands. She watched Matt and Foggy as she pressed the last few buttons, watched them laughing and talking over three open bottles of beer. Watched Foggy's jittering leg, and Matt's slightly hunched shoulders. She froze for a moment, watching in affection and realizing the simple existence of her affection at the same time. Her body brought her back to them, to her family, without actual thought. 

A new pair of bottles sat on the table for her and Foggy, but Matt still gently held his first in loose fingers, wrists resting against his thighs. Karen at first had attempted not to stare at those hands, as the fading burns almost smooth with the skin around them, but as exhaustion and alcohol wound down whatever tense energy remained in Foggy, she forgot why she ought not to stare, trying to memorize where hands met glass and how everyone’s feet looked almost touching under the table. The music was simple melodies, quiet, and could easily be talked over, and so they were. First the guys regaled her with sordid college tales, then stupid childhood tales, then somehow they ended up in the how-I-got-this-scar file. While Karen had a few good ones involving the summer she learned to skateboard, or attempted to learn, Matt won with a few stories about his early months without sight and the importance of learning not to leave clothing wherever it fell. 

“So you're not just a neat freak?” Karen tipped her head curiously as Matt took a sip of beer. 

“God no. It's all necessity: Foggy here is the neat freak, I was just forced to learn it when we lived in the dorms together.” 

Foggy nearly snorted beer out his nose laughing, but recovered quickly. “There are girls over there Matt, girls who are smiling at me. Since this conversation has apparently devolved into 'lets make fun of Foggy' I am going over there. To talk to those girls.” 

“Good-luck Foggy, knock their socks off,” Matt sounded like he was ordering men into battle. 

“Or something else off,” Karen half-sang her line for contrast. 

“Jesus, you two,” Foggy managed to shake his head as he sauntered away, trying to look both suave and vaguely disapproving. 

Karen swallowed the last few warm sips of her beer quickly. She set the bottle on the table with a click, and turned her entire torso to wholly assess the man next to her. The silence stretched. Matt's lips seemed to twitch at the corners, trying not to speak. Or smile. 

“Do you dance Matt?” She wasn't exactly startled by the words coming out of her mouth. Admittedly she had intended them to form more of a question then a demand, but it was said. Matt's eyebrows rose slightly but then so did the rest of him, standing and moving to set down his beer. 

“I'm not much at leading, but...” 

Karen touched his hand to orient him and Matt took her arm, a step behind her. She moved him out to the darkest part of the dance floor, and touched his hands, holding them loosely. For a few moments it was almost like a middle-school dance, holding hands in the dark, not talking. Then Karen looked up, the lights showing only patches and flashes of the face of the man before her. For a moment just his lips were visible, smirking slightly. She sighed, deeply and contentedly, and stepped forward, moving one hand up to Matt's arm and the other to his hip. His hands found her waist, following her lead, and they just danced, trying to move in sync to the music, trying to match rhythm and tempo of one another and the song. The dance became little flashes for her: smiles, a goofy intentionally awkward shuffle, clinging to one another and laughing in the dark, a brief lesson in the moon-walk, legs running parallel so that Matt could follow her motions.

The song ended, then another ended, then finally they both were laughing and panting, and not dancing any more. 

“Thank you,” She brushed her hair back, watching Matt's glasses fracture the lights into shards of color. 

“Always happy to dance with such a good instructor,” he squeezed her arm gently as she led him off the floor, back to their table. 

“No, I mean thank you. I realized I didn't actually say it the other day. I was flustered and tongue-tied so I never said it, I just said we owe you it. So. Thank you, for... For everything.” She sat next to him, watching his eyes under the glasses. 

Matt eventually lifted the glasses, pushing them up his forehead to sit in his hairline. He raised his hands, gently rubbing his eyes, then turned to face Karen, looking just past her as always. She waited for denial, or the hard conversation, or the “let's not talk here” line. Waited for him to underestimate her. But he smiled, which she didn't expect. 

“You're welcome. It's... It's good to hear sometimes,” he smiled small and sad with one corner of his mouth, and Karen felt her heart race and break at the same time. 

“Then I'll just keep saying it,” she stared at the empty beer trying to push through her nervous energy. “I'm feeling painfully honest today, but you don't need to tell me. Anything. It's none of my business-” 

“It kind of is.”

“No, listen. It's not, not if you don't want it to be. Honesty time, remember? I just, if you want to talk. If you want to... I don't know what good I can be, but thank you. And anything I can, I'm there for you.” 

They were silent as Matt slowly combed through his hair and slid his glasses back into place. 

“I don't want you involved in this. In anything dangerous.” 

“I don't want to be involved in anything dangerous,” she laughed trying to sound light but it came out a little shattered. “I am all for avoiding anything dangerous or frightening. I can't punch and I don't want to, I can't even saw up a cut.”

“I actually have that sort of covered,” Matt muttered. 

“Well okay, good. Because I failed home-ec, mostly by not going. I just mean. If you need someone to talk to. Wow, that sounds so silly, but still.”

“Is Matt being Debbie Downer again?””Foggy was suddenly there, looming in the flashing lights. 

“No, I'm just a very sad drunk when I don't get the eel.” 

“Oh god, the eel! You think Josie would open up long enough for us to grab a bottle?”

“No,” Matt had composed himself in a few moment, gone from relaxed to just-out-of-court in moments. “Don't abuse knowledge of our clients home addresses Foggy. Very frowned upon.” 

“Funny you should mention home,” Foggy glanced over a shoulder, “Do you think you two can see each other back safely? I promised a charming woman over there I would show her this great high class bar I know of. I'm trying to think up a place to actually match that description-”

“Saint James, it's for aspiring law students. They serve fancy cocktails but they're not too swanky.” 

“You are the best,” Foggy clapped the seated man on one shoulder. “And with that I exit stage left. Get home safe kiddies.” 

“I suppose we should head out here too,” Karen stood slowly, watching Foggy's retreating back. 

“Can I walk you home?” 

Karen nodded the cringed, “Yes. Nodded, again.” 

“I know.” They both smiled awkwardly. 

“So you could... See?”

“I'd say more like I could tell, it's- ” 

“It doesn't matter,” karen smiled and tapped his hand to help him up. 

The walk was silent. Karen offered Matt her arm as always and he accepted without comment. More times then she could count Karen took a breath to speak, but every time Matt seemed to pause like he was waiting for the words and suddenly she couldn't say a thing. 

“Is this how it's going to be?” Matt finally managed. 

“No!” Karen stopped and thought, lips thinned for a moment. “No, it's just that I have a lot of questions. And I'm a little confused. But I don't want to bombard you, and I don't want you to feel obligated to tell me anything. I want you to know that I haven't changed my mind about anything, I mean... You're still my Matt.” 

She felt her breath hitch trying to undo the last sentence.

“Your Matt?” 

“Shut up, I'm trying to-” 

“No, Karen, it's just-”

“I don't want you to think-”

“I like it.”

She froze. “What?” 

His smile was wide, but his chin tilted down.   
“Matt.” 

“I just mean,” He tried to laugh, she could hear that he had to try. He jerked his chin slightly with a little shrug. “I mean to say that I'm glad we're okay. That you're not alienated. Karen I can almost hear you staring.” 

“Is that a superpower sense thing you have, or do you think I've managed to will myself into having laser eyes?” 

“Laser eyes, definitely.” 

“Oh well good, maybe I can fight crime too,” Karen tapped her feet against the cement trying to make the comment casual. Matt grimaced in the general vicinity of he ground and stayed silent. Another tense silence ensued, and suddenly Karen simply couldn't take it any more. She felt good, she'd done good, and she wasn't going to stop now. 

“Since I'm doing this honestly-for-the-whole-day thing, I should just say... I'm not good at this whole flirting thing where I make a half move, then you do, then I do. Because neither one of us ever commits to saying anything that can't be waived away or taken back. That just feels too much like cowardice to me. So I'm gonna do this,” Karen placed one hand on Matt's upper arm and took a step forward, “And unless you ask me to stop, I'm just going to kiss you.” 

Matt was frozen, so Karen simply telegraphed her movement, leaning forward and placing her other hand on his lapel before kissing him gently just at the corner of his lips. His freeze stayed in place while Karen leaned back and settled back onto her heels again. 

There was no awkward pause this time, though. As soon as her motion stopped, Matt's began and her leaned into her space to placed one hand on her cheek. His kiss was brief, but soft and so painfully honest. As he pulled back Karen could see his eyelashes fluttering over the top of his glasses, and she found herself catching his hand against her cheek, keeping him from leaning totally away. 

“Let me take you out for dinner,” Matt's thumb swept a short line against her cheekbone as he spoke. 

“I didn't think you liked restaurants.”

“It doesn't matter.” 

“When?” Karen realized she was leaning into his hand slightly.

“When are you free?” 

“Tomorrow.” 

“Ah,that's not too... Soon?” Matt inhaled through his nose and tried to laugh. “I just mean Foggy repeats up and down that you shouldn't call until the third day, and besides that's no time to get a table...” 

“Then let's stay in, I'll make you dinner.” 

Matt just nodded, smiling, and lowered his hand from her cheek. Karen caught his fingers, leaving their hands hooked together between them. 

“I should head up,” Karen's hand lingered. 

“I should head...” 

“... Off?” 

“Yeah.” 

“Be safe. Out there. If-” 

He leaned in one last time, but didn't kiss her. His hand froze an inch from brushing her cheek again, “I will be.” 

She walked up the steps, turning at the door to watch him as he stood in the phosphorous light. 

“Matt, tomorrow, at dinner. Would you mind if I did ask you some questions? You won't have to answer but, I just... I am curious.” 

“No, I wouldn't mind, but Karen,” Matt's head was tipped slightly to one side, the way he looked when he was thinking fast, the way he looked in court. “I have questions I'd like to ask too.” 

Karen felt the burn under her breast-bone as her heart raced suddenly and painfully, and as it slammed in her chest she saw Matt's face jumped to point toward her exactly as though he was staring at her. She hadn't thought of this, hadn't planed this far out. Honesty about this one thing, that's what she was prepared for, just this one thing. She'd stuck her head out too far, and now he'd strike it clean off. 

Matt's face had changed, she saw it even behind the black disks perched on his nose. He looked disappointed. 

“Of course,” somehow her voice was even, though her palms were hot with sweat and the world seemed somehow farther away then normal. “Honesty, right?”


End file.
